London, Jan. 30 (TNS): Defence Minister Khurram Dastgir says Pakistan is planning a ‘regional recalibration’ of its foreign policy after the US froze 2 billion dollars in military aid.
Khurram Dastgir Khan told the Financial Times that his government was engaged in a “regional recalibration of Pakistan’s foreign and security policy” that threatens to undermine the US war effort in Afghanistan.
Khan said Pakistan would look to Russia and China — as well as Europe — for new military supplies, as the US had “chosen castigation over co-operation”.
“We have already bought some Russian helicopters in the past three years,” he said.
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“This is what we call a regional recalibration of Pakistan’s foreign and security policy. It’s because of the unfortunate choice the United States continues to make.”
The US said this month that it would suspend security assistance to Pakistan worth $2bn because of what Washington sees as Islamabad’s refusal to do enough to tackle terrorism, particularly around the Afghan border. President Donald Trump has reversed the policy of removing US troops from Afghanistan, in an effort to restore security to the country, which has suffered a string of deadly attacks in recent years — some apparently originating from across the Pakistani border. Earlier this month Mr Trump tweeted that Pakistan had taken $33bn of US aid over 15 years and given back “nothing but lies and deceit”.
Khan called his comments “deeply offensive” and “counterproductive”. Mr Khan added: “It is unfortunate that we are even discussing the numbers [the amount of aid] while Afghanistan slowly spirals out of the American and Afghan control.”
The row has become one of the biggest rifts in the 70-year alliance between the US and Pakistan, with Islamabad warning it would buy weapons from other countries.
Khan said Pakistan and the US still shared many interests but in Washington “lately the focus has been on areas of divergence”. Asked about reports that Islamabad could buy a batch of Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia, Mr Khan said “not yet”, but added: “We have opened a dialogue with Russia, which traditionally we have never had, because we were firmly in the western camp.”
The backbone of the Pakistan air force currently consists of F-16 jets made by Lockheed Martin of the US, although Khan said Islamabad had not received spare parts from the US for several years. “We are using our own ingenuity and using other sources to keep the fleet up in the air,” he said. “It has been very difficult.”
